# Moroccan Jewish Migration Study - D.A. **Research Question:** How do second-generation Moroccan Jews in Israel construct and transmit their cultural identity across generations? **Methodology:** narrative **Date:** 2026-04-15 03:58:00 --- ## Transcript ### Interviewer Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I'm really interested in hearing about your experiences and your family's story. To start, could you tell me a bit about yourself and your family background? ### Participant Well, thank you for having me. It's nice to talk about these things, you know. My name is David Azoulay, and I'm... let me see, 78 years old now. I was born in Casablanca, in Morocco, back in 1946. We lived in the mellah there - that's the Jewish quarter. My family, we were Sephardic Jews, been in Morocco for many, many generations. I came to Israel when I was just a boy, eight years old, in 1956. My parents, they decided it was time to leave Morocco and come to Eretz Israel. We went first to Marseille, then took a ship to Haifa. I remember that journey... but that's another story. I spent most of my working life in textiles, had a good business here in Israel. I'm retired now. My wife, may she rest in peace, she passed away five years ago. We had four children together, and now I have twelve grandchildren, can you believe it? They keep me busy. I live in Netanya now, been here for many years. There's a good Moroccan community here, so I feel at home. We still keep many of our traditions - the food, the celebrations, the way we pray. It's important to remember where you come from, no? What would you like to know more about? ### Interviewer Thank you for sharing that, David. I can tell there's so much history in your family's journey. You mentioned you remember the journey from Morocco to Israel - could you tell me about that? What stands out in your memory from that time when you were eight years old? ### Participant Hmm, that's a good question... Let me think about that. I was so young, you know, but some things, they stay with you. I remember the confusion more than anything else. One day we're packing everything - well, not everything, we couldn't take much - and my mother, she was crying while she folded our clothes. I didn't understand why we had to leave. For me, Casablanca was home. The mellah, with all the narrow streets, the smell of the bread from the bakery, the sound of Hebrew and Darija mixing together... The boat from Marseille to Haifa, that I remember clearly. I was seasick the whole time! My father kept telling me "David, soon you'll see the Holy Land," but all I wanted was to stop feeling like my stomach was upside down. There were so many families on that boat, all of us leaving Morocco together. When we arrived in Haifa... I think it was the smells that hit me first. Different smells, you know? Not the spices and the ocean air of Casablanca. Everything looked so different, so new. My parents, they seemed scared and excited at the same time. They kept speaking in whispers with the other adults. I remember asking my mother if we would go back to visit our old house, and she just... she couldn't answer me. I think that's when I started to understand this wasn't just a trip. The absorption camp where they first put us, that's a whole other memory. But those first moments in Israel, they're burned in my mind. ### Interviewer What happened when you got to the absorption camp? What was that like for your family? ### Participant Ah, the ma'abara... that's what they called it. We were there for almost two years, if I remember correctly. It was hard, very hard. We came from a good life in Casablanca - my father had a small business there, we had our house in the mellah. But in the camp... we lived in these tin shacks, all of us together. The heat in summer was terrible, and in winter it was so cold. My mother, she tried to make it feel like home, but how can you make a tin shack feel like home? The food was different too. They gave us this white bread, not like the khubz we were used to. And no spices! My mother, she would cry sometimes when she tried to cook. She managed to make some dafina on Fridays when she could get the ingredients, but it wasn't the same. I remember my father... he aged so much in those two years. He was looking for work, trying to learn more Hebrew. He spoke French and Arabic, but Hebrew was still difficult for him. I picked it up faster - children, you know, we learn languages like sponges. There were families from all over - Morocco, Tunisia, Iraq, Yemen. Everyone with their own stories, their own struggles. The Yemenites, they had their own section. We Moroccans, we stuck together mostly. What I remember most is my mother singing the old piyyutim at night to help us fall asleep. Even in that terrible place, she tried to keep our traditions alive. That voice of hers... it made everything feel a little bit better, even when nothing was right. Eventually we got out and moved to a proper apartment, but those two years, they shaped us, you know? ### Interviewer Your mother sounds like she was the heart of the family during those difficult times. What other traditions did she keep alive? What do you remember about the way your family maintained your Moroccan identity in those early years? ### Participant Yes, my mother... she was something special. Even my wife used to say she learned everything about being a good Jewish Moroccan woman from watching my mother. You know, in the ma'abara and even after, when we finally got our own place, she never let us forget who we were. Every Friday, no matter what, she would make couscous. Real couscous, not from a box like they have now. She would roll it by hand, steam it three times... the whole process took hours. And somehow she always managed to find the right spices - the ras el hanout, the harissa. She had connections, you know? Other Moroccan women, they would share what they had. For Mimouna, after Pessach, oh! She would make these beautiful tables with all the sweets - the mufleta, the chebakia if she could get the ingredients. She taught all the neighborhood kids the songs. Even the Ashkenazi families, they started coming to our Mimouna celebrations. And the henna ceremonies when my sisters got engaged... my mother, she knew all the old songs, all the traditions. She would paint the most beautiful designs on their hands. The whole community would come. But what I remember most is how she never spoke to us in Hebrew at home, only in Darija. She would say, "Hebrew is for school and synagogue, but Darija is for your nesama" - your soul. She was afraid we would lose it completely. My father, he was more... how do you say... he wanted us to become Israeli faster. But my mother, she understood that you can be both. You can love Israel and still remember the taste of your grandmother's pastilla, you know? Even now, when I cook - and yes, I learned to cook after my wife passed - I still make things the way my mother taught me. ### Interviewer Tell me about a time when you made one of those dishes recently. What was it like cooking those family recipes? ### Participant Well... let me think. It was maybe three months ago, for my grandson's bar mitzvah. The whole family was coming, and I wanted to make something special, something that would remind everyone where we come from. I decided to make pastilla - you know, the one with the chicken and almonds, wrapped in that thin pastry. My mother's recipe. But I'll tell you, standing in my kitchen with all those ingredients... it was harder than I expected. My hands, they're not as steady as they used to be, and rolling out the warqa - that's the pastry - it kept tearing. I remember my mother doing it so easily, like it was nothing. She would stretch it so thin you could read through it. Me? I was getting frustrated, cursing in Darija at this stupid dough. But then I started hearing her voice in my head, telling me "yallah David, patience, patience." And the smell... when I added the cinnamon and the almonds, suddenly it was like she was right there in the kitchen with me. My daughter-in-law came early to help set up, and she found me there, covered in flour, with tears in my eyes. She thought something was wrong! But it wasn't wrong, it was... how do you explain it? It was like talking to my mother again. When we served it at the bar mitzvah, my oldest son - he took a bite and he said "Saba, this tastes exactly like Savta's." That made it all worth it. The grandchildren, they were asking "what is this?" but they were eating it, you know? Sometimes I think maybe I should teach one of them to make it, but... it's not just the recipe. It's all the stories that go with it. ### Interviewer What stories would you want to share with them if you were teaching them to make pastilla? ### Participant ... Well, that's a good question. Where do you even start? I would tell them about my grandmother first, I think. She lived with us in the mellah, and she was the one who taught my mother. She had these hands... so small, but so strong. She could make pastilla for thirty people without even thinking about it. Every wedding, every celebration, people would come to her. I would tell them about the pigeons. In Casablanca, we used real pigeons for pastilla, not chicken like I make now. My grandmother, she would go to the market early in the morning, feel each pigeon to make sure it was fat enough, young enough. She had this whole ritual - how to prepare them, how to cook them so the meat would fall off the bones. And I would tell them about the day we left Morocco. My mother, she spent the whole morning before we left making one last pastilla. Can you imagine? We're packing to leave our whole life behind, and she's in the kitchen making pastilla. I asked her why, and she said "David, I want to remember the taste of home." We couldn't take it with us, of course. She gave it to our neighbors, the Cohens, who were staying. But she made me help her, made me watch every step. "One day," she said, "you'll want to remember this." I was eight! I just wanted to play with my friends. But now... now I understand. She knew we might never taste real Moroccan pastilla again. She was giving me a piece of our history. If I teach my grandchildren, I would tell them that every fold in that pastry carries a story. Every sprinkle of cinnamon is a memory. It's not just food - it's who we are. But they're so busy these days, you know? Maybe they don't have time for an old man's stories. ### Interviewer What do you notice about your grandchildren and how they connect with their Moroccan heritage? Do any of them show interest in these traditions? ### Participant Hmm... it's complicated, you know? Some yes, some no. My oldest granddaughter, Michal, she's twenty-two now, she comes to me sometimes and asks questions. Last year she wanted to learn to make msemen for her boyfriend - can you believe it? She said she wanted to impress him with "authentic Moroccan food." I taught her, but I also told her "Michal, this isn't just to impress some boy. This is your heritage." But the younger ones... I don't know. They speak Hebrew like real Israelis, they listen to this modern music, they eat at McDonald's. Sometimes I look at them and I think, where is Morocco in these children? My son Moshe, he tries. He brings them to our Mimouna celebration every year, but I see them - they're polite, they eat the mufleta, but they don't really understand what it means. For them it's just another party. The funny thing is, sometimes they surprise me. My grandson Avi, he's sixteen, usually he's all about computers and video games. But last month he asked me to teach him some words in Darija. He said his friends at school think it's cool that his grandfather speaks Arabic. I never thought I'd see the day when speaking Darija would make you cool in Israel! And my granddaughter Noa, she's studying at university now, she wrote a paper about Moroccan Jewish immigration for one of her classes. She interviewed me for hours, asked me things I hadn't thought about in years. So maybe... maybe it's not lost completely. Maybe they'll come back to it when they're older, when they have their own families. But it's different for them, you know? For me, Morocco is a real place with real memories. For them, it's just stories their crazy saba tells.